The present invention relates to a dispensing device for free-flowing or pourable products, especially a dispensing device for cooled water and ice in a refrigeration device.
Refrigeration devices with built-in ice makers and a dispensing device for ice or cooled water are enjoying increasing popularity. In general these dispensing devices have an exit opening for ice and a water outlet which are accommodated on the outside of the refrigeration device so that a user can obtain water and ice without having to open a door.
There are different designs of dispensing device known for refrigeration devices which allow a container at one and the same location to be filled both with water and also with ice. In a first known design a vertical feed channel for ice has an exit opening, below which a container to be filled is placed, and is filled with ice from a sideways direction. This falls freely in the feed channel into the container. In an upper area of the feed channel, away from the path of the ice, is located an outlet for water. The water likewise falls vertically through the feed channel into the container. Since the outlet may not block the path of the ice, it must be arranged high above the container, which means that water falls from a great height and there is the danger of splashing. The feed channel also forms a heat leak via which heat can get into the interior of the refrigeration device, which increases its energy consumption.
Another solution is to arrange the outlet for water offset to the side of an exit opening for the ice and to align it so that an angled stream of water is produced that hits the opening of a container to be filled just like the ice. This however regularly leads to the last drops of the filling process no longer hitting the container but falling down to the side of the latter.